Wieneke Archive Book 4d : Artists - Australian & Other Presscuttings

EKEND AUSTRALIAN MAGAZINE 8 'n the zany m u until the grand ..le of the Home- ,ing Week festivi- Omega and Delta 1.1e it out in a man- that would have the Marquess of tiisbury crying In fists. it what. National Animal ise floes clearly e is a lot of young .nt, from the fat, ty, alcohol -soaked uto of John Belushi true U.S. nvalent to our own 1.1.0 to the smooth - sing Otter of Tim heson and the Arated fat man of ;Alen Furst. lid it almost makes for some of its rile gags with a . ,erb ending telling 1, at happened to the .in characters that cis up the self- , iscious end of )ther movie set in :! American Graffiti. nimal House may lead to a craze for t;iastic toga parties ere the way it has in .1 U.S., but it could 1.:e us all a true sense 1 what the spirit of i:tiier education is, dly about. edited by maria prerauer The Picasso of Arnhem Land iialledtA, the , WAS Picasso of Arnhem Land. When he died his body was wrapped in an old mattress, laid in the back of an open Land Rover and carried to a burial place. That was at 3 o'clock Easter Sunday on Croker Island, 1976. As custom dictated, his personal possessions were burnt - six bark paintings and his MBE medal. A week earlier, Yirawala, the greatest (or so mast people believe) painter of Aboriginal dreams and traditions, had contracted gastro- enteritis, and slowly died without asking for medical attention. He was in his eighties, nearly blind, and died saying he believed that a bronze bust, sculpted by John Dowie, held by the South Australian Gallery, was draining him of his life forces. At Sydney's Hogarth Gallery now on view are six of Yirawala's bark paintings. Six others have been taken from the gallery because certain factions in the Aboriginal community eel that Aboriginal art should not be sold conunerclally - that it belongs to the Aborigines. While the case is at Present in front of. a magistrate, and while the six paintings still Police station, it is still well Worth a trip to the gallery to see the remaining half -dozen, Many Australians for Years have been indifferent to bark Paintings, more have become desensitised after having seen them badly done in every tourist trap or airport giftaLop around the country. To see Yirawala's works at the Hogarth is to renew and refresh one's ideas about Aboriginal bark paint- ings.Undoubtedly Yira- wala was a master. Comparing his works with lesser traditional painters is a lesson in itself. Where less -gifted bark painters make images that often seem SANDRA McGRATH as static and fixed as a piece of adhesive tape, Yirawala's paintings breathe with an implied animism. Where other bark painters fill in the shape of an animal with a dull and repetitious pattern making, Yirawala seems to have an infinite capacity for invention within the tradition. Take for example the painting of the kangaroo - a usual and common subject. But note what Yirawala does with it. The vertebrae of the animal, in his hands, becomes a series of sensitive bristling barbed hooks which subtly flatten out into spaced dots. Note, too, how the intestinal track of the kangaroo is transformed into a looped and spiral free- form of pod shapes. Note again how, with infinite care, Yirawala balances and scales the diagonal cross hatchings (each neatly contained in a rectangle) against the relative proportions of the body of the animal. Take another example of Yirawala - the painting of the Mfnnis - or sph its that dwell in the rocks. Here he is dealing with a human figure image, but with the spirit at the same time. The picture is literally jumping with energy.. The two main figures are placed one above the other, and form counterbal ancing shapes. To the Aborigines, Mimis are tiny (like fairies in European lore), almost weightless inhabitants of the earth since before man. According to belief, they initiated man into the skills of hunting and love- making. While generally benevolent, they have a mischievous side if not given their proper due. In Yirawala's painting the extremities of the Mimis are nothing more than a series of straight lines radiating from the dancing figures, but even within themselves they appear as spikes of restlessness. Again there is crass - hatching, bands, and diamond shapes which are all overlooked in one intricately conceived pattern. If there is a European comparison to make, Matisse comes to mind. The late Matisse cut-out dancing figures have the same extraordinary sense of vitality executed with minimum means that one sees in this work of Yirawala. Those Cinema Jazz Blues WO OF the early eine- wonders fol- lowing the inven- i tion r,f the "talk- TI1( .lots MIKE WILLIAMS of a fillip by two events. Last weekend at the Tom Mann Theatre in Chalmers Street, Syd- ney, the Australian Blues Society showed a L...141, Bill's Blues starring singer-guitarist Bill Broonzy; and Jazz Dance, with Pee Wee Russell, Jimmy Archey and Willie "The Lion" qmith. excerpt from Bessie's film. The first side is completed by a Louis Armstrong Band, including trombonist Preston Jackson and ctriiinronr if: n vii ca